The Only Place We Knew Where to Strike...

by Rebecca Thomas

— looking out to the horizon where every wave carries the memory of promises made and the weight of what we risk losing.

As a nation, when we greet others or show our gifts to the world, we begin with pōwhiri and haka. These are the ways the world knows who we are — the sound and spirit that remind everyone we are not Australian.

We wave the cultural flag proudly when it suits us — at stadiums, on stages, in speeches. But when it comes to weaving those same values into the way we educate our children, we grow suddenly quiet. This strike wasn’t only about pay. It was about the kind of nation we are when we teach our young.

And yet, the irony: our Australian cousins now have more say in our education system than we do.

There was no official strike at Waitangi today. But for a few of us, it felt like the only place we could go — the only ground that matched the weight of what we’re losing. We didn’t need a placard. We needed a place to think, to grieve, and to remember what this profession once stood for.

Our purpose has always been to amplify the voices of others — not to become the story; to honour the ones living it. We went to Waitangi to film what was in our hearts: a message from educators who have seen too much, carried too long, and still care too deeply to go quiet.

We planned to call it 'Lay Your Dreams' and thought about where we might showcase it — a small rebellion of sound and soul, from the only place we knew where to strike.

The making of 'Lay Your Dreams'

The words came first.

They always do.

The voices of those we represent rattle in our minds daily — especially when they are unheard or underserved. Inspired by Sir Ken Robinson’s work — his conviction that words and imagination can move the soul to see the world anew — we took the script and let it breathe light through the camera.

We didn’t plan storyboards. We just listened — to the wind over Te Tii, to the laughter of tamariki near the shore, to the silence that carries truth. Each scene found us: the flagstaff, the river mouth, the empty whare still warm from morning karakia. We filmed what we felt — the ache, the hope, the belonging that cannot be measured.

But beneath that beauty sat a deep sadness.

As we walked through Te Kōngahu Museum, the realisation struck hard. We are a nation with battle scars — but also a nation of good people who have kept trying, over generations, to stitch those wounds closed. Each exhibit whispered of movements and moments that had shifted us forward: protests, petitions, partnerships.

As we walked, we were reminded of what we had been building — and why it mattered.

Te Mātaiaho was never a bureaucratic framework; it was a woven curriculum, not a conveyor belt. It wasn’t a race from one standard to the next, but a living network of relationships, identities, languages, and places.

It asked us to teach like we belong here.

To see our ākonga as taonga tuku iho — treasures gifted forward.

To build learning from whakapapa outward, not policy downward.

That was the work we were doing well — work grounded in our collective story, born from partnership and trust. And it began, like all stories of true education in Aotearoa, beneath a flag at Waitangi, where people once promised each other something greater: ako tahi — learning together.

In the half-light of the museum’s lower hallways, we saw evidence of that long journey — stories of courage and reform, of voices that once rose to demand better. For a brief moment, it felt like hope was tangible, built layer upon layer by those before us.

Then, as we moved through the revolving door into the present, the contrast hit. The air outside felt heavier, as if the momentum of those hard-won gains had stalled. The sadness of what we have lost — the progress erased, the spirit of partnership dimmed — settled quietly between us.

Everywhere we looked afterwards, there were traces of what had once been progress: the echoes of promise, the foundations of Te Mātaiaho still visible. In one dim corner, a quotation caught the light:

“Today, we are strong enough and honest enough to… admit that the Treaty has been imperfectly observed. I look upon it as a legacy of promise; it can be a guide to… all those whose collective sense of justice, fairness and tolerance will shape the future.” — Queen Elizabeth II, Waitangi, 6 February 1990

Those words felt heavier now.

That speech was thirty-five years ago — a generation of effort, protest, dialogue, and rebuilding since. 

Thousands of educators, iwi leaders, and communities have spent decades trying to live up to that legacy of promise, weaving equity and honour into the daily fabric of teaching and learning.

And yet, in barely two years, so much of that work has been undone: funding slashed from Te Ahu o te Reo Māori teacher training; curriculum documents stripped of Treaty and te reo references; bilingual road signs replaced; classroom readers rewritten to remove Māori words; and more than a billion dollars of Māori-specific investment quietly redirected.

The kaupapa that took decades to strengthen has been stripped back by policy and politics, as if the threads of justice and partnership could simply be unpicked without consequence.

We have gone backwards in our thinking. The damage is not abstract — it is visible. It shows in stripped curriculum and muted conversations, in the quiet fog that hangs across our staffrooms.

Te Mātaiaho was never just a curriculum; it was a collective act of remembering. It connected Te Whāriki, Ka Hikitia, Tātaiako, and the localised work of teachers who were weaving learning through whakapapa and place. It gave us hope that Aotearoa could finally teach from within its own story. 

Standing at Waitangi, that loss felt personal.

While the rest of the teaching world marched in the cities, we let te ao Māori hold our protest. Our resistance took form in stillness and story — a quiet uprising of aroha and artistry. Our tūpuna would have recognised this way of dissent: not a strike of noise, but of truth.

And yet, even as the nation paused to listen, the Minister of Education could not.

When asked why she refuses to meet or speak with the very people she claims to support, her silence is telling. The Minister often talks about partnership, yet she avoids the most basic form of it — listening. Teachers, principals, and support staff have extended invitations, written letters, and opened doors, but none of it seems to reach her.

Instead of listening, she deflects.

Instead of walking beside us, she stands apart — defensive and distant.

In Parliament, Erica Stanford filled the air with talk of her “hundreds of friends” — a strange defence in the face of 100,000 workers standing together. It was meant to sound confident, perhaps even connected, but it came off brittle — the voice of someone desperate to control a story that has already slipped through her hands.

It was a moment that said more about disconnection than friendship.

While she grumbled across the aisle and gestured toward imaginary allies, educators across Aotearoa were out in the rain, united by something she can no longer grasp: wairua. This movement is not about politics. It’s about the promise beneath the cloth we were meant to protect — the promise of learning that values humanity over measurement.

Returning to the source

When we packed up our cameras at Waitangi, the light fading, the kōwhai still bloomed against the wind. The tide carried our reflections back to where the work began.

Sometimes striking isn’t about walking off the job; it’s about walking back to the beginning — to the kaupapa, the cloth, the calling.

It’s about standing on the same soil where promises were made and asking, what are we still keeping, and what have we let go?

Because the sadness that hangs in our staffrooms is real.

We are not just tired — we are heartbroken.

We were building something grounded and good, something woven from our own stories.

And now we watch as those threads are pulled apart again.